CHAPTER V.
BRAVO!
The Gissings' house stood in a large garden; but though it waswreathed with creepers, and set with flowers after the manner offlowerful Lucknow, there was no cult of pansies or such like Englishtreasures here. It was gay with that acclimatized tangle of poppiesand larkspur, marigold, mignonette, and corn cockles which Indiangardeners love to sow broadcast in their cartwheel mud-beds; "powderof flowers" they call the mixed seeds they save for it from year toyear.
In the big dark dining room also--where Alice Gissing, looking halfher years in starch, white muslin, and blue ribbons, sat at the headof the table--there was no cult of England. Everything was frankly,stanchly of the nabob and pagoda-tree style; for the Gissingspreferred India, where they were received into society, to England,where they would have been out of it.
It had been one those heavy luncheons, beginning with many meats andmuch bottled beer, ending with much madeira and many cigars, whichsent the insurance rate for India up to war risks in those days.
And there was never any scarcity of the best beer at the Gissings',seeing that he had the contract for supplying it to the Britishtroops. His wife, however, preferred solid-looking porter with acreamy head to it, and a heavy odor which lingered about her prettysmiling lips. It was a most incongruous drink for one of herappearance; but it never seemed to affect either her gay little bodyor gay little brain; the one remained youthful, slender, the otherbrightly, uncompromisingly clear.
She had been married twice. Once in extreme youth to a clerk in theOpium Department, who owed the good looks which had attracted her to atrace of dark blood. Then she had chosen wealth in the person of Mr.Gissing. Had he died, she would probably have married for position;since she had a catholic taste for the amenities of life. But he hadnot died, and she had lived with him for ten years in good-naturedtoleration of all his claims upon her. As a matter of fact, they didnot affect her in the least, and in her clear, high voice, she used towonder openly why other women worried over matrimonial troubles orfussed over so slight an encumbrance as a husband. In a way she feltequal to more than one, provided they did not squabble over her. Thatwas unpleasant, and she not only liked things to be pleasant, but hadthe knack of making them so; both to the man whose name she bore, andwhose house she used as a convenient spot wherein to give luncheonparties, and to the succession of admirers who came to them and drankher husband's beer.
He was a vulgar creature, but an excellent business man, with a knackof piling up the rupees which made the minor native contractors, whosetrade he was gradually absorbing, gnash their teeth in sheer envy. Forthe Western system of risking all to gain all was too much opposed tothe Eastern one of risking nothing to gain little for the hereditarymerchants to adopt it at once. They have learned the trick of fenceand entered the lists successfully since then; but in 1856 the foe wasnew. So they fawned on the shrewd despoiler instead, and curried favorby bringing his wife fruits and sweets, with something costlier hiddenin the oranges or sugar drops. Alice Gissing accepted everything witha smile; for her husband was not a Government servant. The contracts,however, being for Government supplies, the givers did notdiscriminate the position so nicely. They used to complain that the_Sirkar_ robbed them both ways, much to Mr. Gissing's amusement, who,as a method of self-glorification, would allude to it at the luncheonparties where many men used to come. Men who, between the intervals ofbadinage with the gay little hostess, could talk with authority onmost affairs. They did not bring their wives with them, but AliceGissing did not seem to mind; she did not get on with women.
"So they complain I rob them, do they?" he said loudly, complacently,to the men on either side of him. "My dear Colonel! an Englishman isbound to rob a native if that means creaming the market, for theyhaven't been educated, sir, on those sound commercial principles whichhave made England the first nation in the world. Take this flourcontract they are howling about. I'm beer by rights, of course, and,by George, I'm proud of it. Your men, Colonel, can't do without beer;England can't do without soldiers; so my business is sound. But whyshouldn't I have my finger in any other pie which holds money? Thesehereditary fools think I shouldn't, and they were trying a ring, sir.Ha! ha! an absurd upside-down d----d Oriental ring based on utterlyrotten principles. You can't keep up the price of a commodity becauseyour grandfather got that price. They ignored the facility oftransport given by roads, etc., ignored the right of government tobenefit--er--slightly--by these outlays. Commerce isn't a selfishthing, sir, by gad. If you don't consider your market a bit, you won'tfind one at all. So I stepped in, and made thousands; for theCommissariat, seeing the saving here, of course asked me to contractfor other places. It serves the idiots uncommon well right; but itwill benefit them in the end. If they're to face Western nations theymust learn--er--the--the morality of speculation." He paused, helpedhimself to another glass of madeira, and added in an unctuous tone,"but till they do, India's a good place."
"Is that Gissing preaching morality?" asked his wife, in her clear,high voice. The men at her end of the table had had their share ofher; those others might be getting bored by her husband.
"Only the morality of business," put in a coarse-looking fellow who,having been betwixt and between the conversations, had been drinkingrather heavily. "There's no need for you to join the ladies as yet,Mrs. Gissing."
Major Erlton, at her right hand, scowled, and the boy on her leftflushed up to the eyes. He was her latest admirer, and was still inthe stage when she seemed an angel incarnate. Only the day before hehad wanted to call out a cynical senior who had answered his vehementwonder as to how a woman like she was could have married a littlebeast like Gissing, with the irreverent suggestion that it might bebecause the name rhymed with kissing.
In the present instance she heeded neither the scowl nor the flush,and her voice came calmly. "I don't intend to, doctor. I mean to sendyou into the drawing room instead. That will be quite as effectual tothe proprieties."
Amid the laugh, Major Erlton found opportunity for an admiringwhisper. She had got the brute well above the belt that time. But theboy's flush deepened; he looked at his goddess with pained, perplexedeyes.
"The morality of speculation or gambling," retorted the doctor,speaking slowly and staring at the delighted Major angrily, "is theart of winning as much money as you can--conveniently. That remindsme, Erlton; you must have raked in a lot over that match."
A sudden dull red showed on the face whose admiration Alice wasanswering by a smile.
"I won a lot, also," she interrupted hastily, "thanks to your tip,Erlton. You never forget your friends."
"No one could forget you--there is no merit----" began the boyhastily, then pausing before the publicity of his own words, andbewildered by the smile now given to him. Herbert Erlton noted thefact sullenly. He knew that for the time being all the little lady'spersonal interest was his; but he also knew that was not nearly somuch as he gave her. And he wanted more, not understanding that if shehad had more to give she would probably have been less generous thanshe was; being of that class of women who sin because the sin has noappreciable effect on them. It leaves them strangely, inconceivablyunsoiled. This imperviousness, however, being, as a rule, consideredthe man's privilege only, Major Erlton failed to understand theposition, and so, feeling aggrieved, turned on the lad.
"I'll remember you the next time if you like, Mainwaring," he said,"but someone has to lose in every game. I'd grasped that fact before Iwas your age, and made up my mind it shouldn't be me."
"Sound commercial morality!" laughed another guest. "Try it,Mainwaring, at the next _Gymkhana_. By the way, I hear thatprofessional, Greyman, is off, so amateurs will have a chance now; hewas a devilish fine rider."
"Rode a devilish fine horse, too," put in the unappeased doctor. "Youbought it, Erlton, in spite----"
"Yes! for fifteen hundred," interrupted the Major, in unmistakabledefiance. "A long price, but there was hanky-panky
in that match.Greyman tried fussing to cover it. You never can trust professionals.However, I _and my friends_ won, and I shall win again with the horse.Take you evens in gold _mohurs_ for the next----"
There was always a sledge-hammer method in the Major's fence, and thesubject dropped.
The room was heavy with the odors of meats and drinks. Dark as it was,the flood of sunshine streaming into the veranda outside, where yellowhornets were buzzing and the servants washing up the dishes, sent aglare even into the shadows. Neither the furniture nor appointments ofthe room owed anything to the East--for Indian art was, so to speak,not as yet invented for English folk--yet there was a strangeunkennedness about their would-be familiarity which suddenly struckthe latest exile, young Mainwaring.
"India is a beastly hole," he said, in an undertone--"things are sodifferent--I wish I were out of it." There was a note of appeal in hisyoung voice; his eyes, meeting Alice Gissing's, filled with tears tohis intense dismay. He hoped she might not see them; but she did, andleaned over to lay one kindly be-ringed little hand on the table quiteclose to his.
"You've got liver," she said confidentially. "India is quite a niceplace. Come to the assembly to-night, and I will give you twoextras--whole ones. And don't drink any more madeira, there is a goodboy. Come and have coffee with me in the drawing room instead; thatwill set you right."
Less has set many a boy hopelessly wrong. To do Alice Gissing justice,however, she never recognized such facts; her own head being quitesteady. But Major Erlton understood the possible results perfectly,and commented on them when, as a matter of course, his long lengthremained lounging in an easy-chair after the other guests had gone,and Mr. Gissing had retired to business. People, from the PalaisRoyale playwrights, downward--or upward--always poke fun at thehusbands in such situations; but no one jibes at the man who succeedsto the cut-and-dried necessity for devotion. Yet there is surelysomething ridiculous in the spectacle of a man playing a conjugal partwithout even a sense of duty to give him dignity in it, and the curseof the commonplace comes as quickly to Abelard and Heloise as it doesto Darby and Joan. So Major Erlton, lounging and commenting, mightwell have been Mrs. Gissing's legal owner. "Going to make a fool ofthat lad now, I suppose, Allie. Why the devil should you when youdon't care for boys?"
She came to a stand in front of him like a child, her hands behind herback, but her china-blue eyes had a world of shrewdness in them."Don't I? Do you think I care for men either? I don't. You just amuseme, and I've got to be amused. By the way, did you remember to orderthe cart at five sharp? I want to go round the Fair before the Club."
If they had been married ten times over, their spending the afternoontogether could not have been more of a foregone conclusion; thereseemed, indeed, no choice in the matter. And they were prosaicallypunctual, too; at "five sharp" they climbed into the high dog-cartboldly, in face of a whole posse of servants dressed in the nabob andpagoda-tree style, also with silver crests in their pith turbans andhuge monograms on their breastplates; old-fashioned servants with themost antiquated notions as to the needs of the sahib _logue_, and afund of passive resentment for the least change in the inheritedroutine of service. Changes which they referred to the fact that thenew-fangled sahibs were not real sahibs. But the heavy, little and bigbreakfasts, the unlimited beer, the solid dinners, the milk punch andbrandy _pani_, all had their appointed values in the Gissings' house;so the servants watched their mistress with approving smiles. And onMondays there was always a larger posse than usual to see the old Mai,who had been Alice Gissing's ayah for years and years, hand up thebouquet which the gardener always had ready, and say, "My salaams tothe missy-baba." Mrs. Gissing used to take the flowers just as shetook her parasol or her gloves. Then she would say, "All right,"partly to the ayah, partly to her cavalier, and the dog-cart, orbuggy, or mail-phaeton, whichever it happened to be, would go spinningaway. For the old Mai had handed the flowers into many differentturn-outs and remained on the steps ready with the authority of age andlong service, to crush any frivolous remarks newcomers might make. Butthe destination of the bouquet was always the same; and that was tostand in a peg tumbler at the foot of a tiny white marble cross in thecemetery. Mrs. Gissing put a fresh offering in it every Monday, goingthrough the ceremony with a placid interest; for the date on the crosswas far back in the years. Still, she used to speak of the little lifewhich had come and gone from hers when she was yet a child herself,with a certain self-possessed plaintiveness born of long habit.
"I was barely seventeen," she would say, "and it was a dear littlething. Then Saumarez was transferred, and I never returned to Lucknowtill I married Gissing. It was odd, wasn't it, marrying twice to thesame station. But, of course, I can't ask him to come here, so it isdoubly kind of you; for I couldn't come alone, it is so sad."
Her blue eyes would be limpid with actual tears; yet as she waited forthe return of the tumbler, which the watchman always had to wash out,she looked more like some dainty figure on a cracker than a weepingNiobe. Nevertheless, the admirers whom she took in succession into herconfidence thought it sweet and womanly of her never to have forgottenthe dead baby, though they rather admired her dislike to live ones.Some of them, when their part in the weekly drama came upon them, asit always did in the first flush of their fancy for the principalactress in it, began by being quite sentimental over it. HerbertErlton did. He went so far once as to bring an additional bouquet ofpansies from his wife's pet bed; but the little lady had looked at itwith plaintive distrust. "Pansies withered so soon," she said, "and asthe bouquet had to last a whole week, something less fragile wasbetter." Indeed, the gardener's bouquets, compact, hard, with theblossoms all jammed into little spots of color among the protrudingsprigs of privet, were more suited to her calm permanency of regret,than the passionate purple posy which had looked so pathetically outof place in the big man's coarse hands. She had taken it from him,however, and strewn the already drooping flowers about the marble.They looked pretty, she had said, though the others were best, as sheliked everything to be tidy; because she had been very, very fond ofthe poor little dear. Saumarez had never been kind, and it had been sopretty; dark, like its father, who had been a very handsome man. Shehad cried for days, then, though she didn't like children now. But shewould always remember this one, always! The old Mai and she oftentalked of it; especially when she was dressing for a ball, because thegardener brought bouquets for them also.
Major Erlton, therefore, gave no more pansies, and his sentiment dieddown into a sort of irritable wonder what the little woman would beat. The unreality of it all struck him afresh on this particularMonday: as he watched her daintily removing the few fallen petals; sohe left her to finish her task while he walked about. The cemetery wasa perfect garden of a place, with rectangular paths bordered by shrubswhich rose from a tangle of annual flowers like that around theGissings' house. This blossoming screen hid the graves for the mostpart; but in the older portions great domed erections--generallysafeguarding an infant's body--rose above it more like summer-housesthan tombs. Herbert Erlton preferred this part of the cemetery. It wasless suggestive than the newer portion, and he was one of thosewholesome, hearty animals to whom the very idea of death is horrible.So hither, after a time, she came, stepping daintily over the graves,and pausing an instant on the way to add a sprig of mignonette to therosebud she had brought from a bush beside the cross; it was a fine,healthy bush which yielded a constant supply of buds suitable forbuttonholes. She looked charming, but he met her with a perplexedfrown.
"I've been wondering, Allie," he said, "what you would have been likeif that baby had lived. Would you have cared for it?"
Her eyes grew startled. "But I do care for it! Why should I come if Ididn't? It isn't amusing, I'm sure; so I think it very unkind of youto suggest----"
"I never suggested anything," he protested. "I know you did--that youdo care. But if it had lived----" he paused as if something escapedhis mental grasp. "Why, I expect you would have been differentsomehow; and I was wonder
ing----"
"Oh! don't wonder, please, it's a bad habit," she replied, suddenlyappeased. "You will be wondering next if I care for you. As if youdidn't know that I do."
She was pinning the buttonhole into his coat methodically, and hecould not refuse an answering smile; but the puzzled look remained. "Isuppose you do, or you wouldn't----" he began slowly. Then a suddenemotion showed in face and voice. "You slip from me somehow,Allie--slip like an eel. I never get a real hold---- Well! I wonder ifwomen understand themselves? They ought to, for nobody else can,that's one comfort." Whether he meant he was no denser than previousrecipients of rosebuds, or that mankind benefited by failing to graspfeminine standards, was not clear. And Mrs. Gissing was moreinterested in the fact that the mare was growing restive. So theyclimbed into the high dog-cart again, and took her a quieting spindown the road. The fresh wind of their own speed blew in their faces,the mare's feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground, the trees slippedpast quickly, the palm-squirrels fled chirruping. He flicked his whipgayly at them in boyish fashion as he sat well back, his big handgiving to the mare's mouth. Hers lay equably in her lap, though thepace would have made most women clutch at the rail.
"Jolly little beasts; aint they, Allie?"
"Jolly altogether; jolly as it can be," she replied with the frankdelight of a girl. They had forgotten themselves innocently enough;but one of the men in a dog-cart, past which they had flashed, put onan outraged expression.
"Erlton and Mrs. Gissing again!" he fussed. "I shall tell my wife tocut her. Being in business ourselves we have tried to keep square. Butthis is an open scandal. I wonder Mrs. Erlton puts up with it. Iwouldn't."
His companion shook his head. "Dangerous work, saying that. Waittill you are a woman. I know more about them than most, being adoctor, so I never venture on an opinion. But, honestly, I believemost women--that little one ahead into the bargain--don't care abutton one way or the other. And, for all our talk, I don't believe wedo either, when all is said and done."
"What is said and done?" asked the other peevishly.
There was a pause. The lessening dog-cart with its flutter of ribbons,its driver sitting square to his work, showed on the hard white roadwhich stretched like a narrowing ribbon over the empty plain. Farahead a little devil of wind swept the dust against the blue sky likea cloud. Nearer at hand lay a cluster of mud hovels, and--going towardit before the dog-cart--a woman was walking along the dusty side ofthe road. She had a bundle of grass on her head, a baby across herhip, a toddling child clinging to her skirts. The afternoon sun sentthe shadows conglomerately across the white metal.
"Passion, Love, Lust, the attractions of sex for sex--what you will,"said the doctor, breaking the silence. "Nothing is easier knockedout of a man, if he is worth calling one--a bugle call, a tightcorner---- God Almighty!--they're over that child! Drive on like thedevil, man, and let me see what I can do."
There is never much to do when all has been done in an instant. Therehad been a sudden causeless leaving of the mother's side, a toddlingchild among the shadows, a quick oath, a mad rear as the mare, checkedby hands like a vise for strength, snapped the shafts as if they hadbeen straws. No delay, no recklessness; but one of these iron-shodhoofs as it flung out had caught the child full on the temple, andthere was no need to ask what that curved blue mark meant, which hadgone crashing into the skull.
Alice Gissing had leaped from the dog-cart and stood looking at thepitiful sight with wide eyes.
"We couldn't do anything," she said in an odd hard voice, as theothers joined her. "There was nothing we could do. Tell the woman,Herbert, that we couldn't help it."
But the Major, making the still plunging mare a momentary excusefor not facing the ghastly truth, had, after one short, sharpexclamation--almost of fear, turned to help the groom. So there was nosound for a minute save the plunging of hoofs on the hard ground, thegroom's cheerful voice lavishing endearments on his restless charge,and a low animal-like whimper from the mother, who, after one wildshriek, had sunk down in the dust beside the dead child, looking atthe purple bruise dully, and clasping her living baby tighter to herbreast. For it, thank the gods! was the boy. That one with the mark onits forehead only the girl.
Then the doctor, who had been busy with deft but helpless hands, rosefrom his knees, saying a word or two in Hindustani which provoked awhining reply from the woman.
"She admits it was no one's fault," he said. "So Erlton, if you willtake our dog-cart----"
But the Major had faced the position by this time. "I can't go. She isa camp follower, I expect, and I shall have to find out--forcompensation and all that. If you would take Mrs. Gissing----" Hisvoice, steady till then, broke perceptibly over the name; its ownerlooked up sharply, and going over to him laid her hand on his arm.
"It wasn't your fault," she said, still in that odd hard voice. "Youhad the mare in hand; she didn't stir an inch. It is a dreadful thingto happen, but"--she threw her head back a little, her wide eyesnarrowed as a frown puckered her smooth forehead--"it isn't as if wecould have prevented it. The thing had to be."
She might have been the incarnation of Fate itself as she glanced downat the dead child in the dust, at the living one reaching from itsmother's arms to touch its sister curiously, at the slow tears of themother herself as she acquiesced in the eternal fitness of things; fora girl more or less was not much in the mud hovel, where she and herman lived hardly, and the Huzoors would doubtless give rupees inexchange, for they were just. She wept louder, however, when withconventional wailing the women from the clustering huts joined her,while the men, frankly curious, listened to the groom's spiriteddescription of the incident.
"You had better go, Allie; you do no good here," said the Major almostroughly. He was anxious to get through with it all; he was absorbed init.
So the man who had said he was going to tell his wife to cut Mrs.Gissing had to help her into the dog-cart.
"It was horrible, wasn't it?" she said suddenly when, in silence, theyhad left the little tragedy far behind them. "We were going an awfulpace, but you saw he had the mare in hand. He is awfully strong, youknow." She paused, and a reflectively complacent smile stole to herface. "I suppose you will think it horrid," she went on; "but itdoesn't feel to me like killing a human being, you know. I'm sorry, ofcourse, but I should have been much sorrier if it had been a whitebaby. Wouldn't you?"
She set aside his evasion remorselessly. "I know all that! People say,of course, that it is wicked not to feel the same toward peoplewhether they're black or white. But we don't. And they don't either.They feel just the same about us because we are white. Don't you thinkthey do?"
"The antagonism of race----" he began sententiously, but she cut himshort again. This time with an irrelevant remark.
"I wonder what your wife would say if she saw me driving in yourdog-cart?"
He stared at her helplessly. The one problem was as unanswerable asthe other.
"You had better drive round the back way to the Fair," she saidconsiderately. "Somebody there will take me off your hands. Otherwiseyou will have to drive me to the Club; for I'm not going home. Itwould be dreadful after that horrid business. Besides, the Fair willcheer me up. One doesn't understand it, you know, and the people crowdalong like figures on a magic lantern slide. I mean that you neverknow what's coming next, and that is always so jolly, isn't it?"
It might be, but the man with the wife felt relieved when, fiveminutes afterward, she transferred herself to young Mainwaring'sbuggy. The boy, however, felt as if an angel had fluttered down fromthe skies to the worn, broken-springed cushion beside him; an angel tobe guarded from humanity--even her own.
"How the beggars stare," he said after they had walked the horse for aspace through the surging crowds. "Let us get away from the grinningapes." He would have liked to take her to paradise and put flamingswords at the gate.
"They don't grin," she replied curtly, "they stare like Bank-holidaypeople stare at the wild beasts in the Zoo. But let us get away fromthe
watered road, the policemen, and all that. That's no fun. See, godown that turning into the middle of it; you can get out that way tothe river road afterward if you like."
The bribe was sufficient; it was not far across to peace and quiet, sothe turn was made. Nor was the staring worse in the irregular lane ofbooths and stalls down which they drove. The unchecked crowd wasstrangely silent despite the numberless children carried shoulder highto see the show, and though the air was full of throbbings of tomtoms,twanging of _sutaras_, intermittent poppings and fizzings of squibs.But it was also strangely insistent; going on its way regardless ofthe shouting groom.
"Take care," said Mrs. Gissing lightly, "don't run over another child.By the way, I forgot to tell you--the Fair was so funny--but Erltonran over a black baby. It wasn't his fault a bit, and the mother,luckily, didn't seem to mind; because it was a girl, I expect. Aren'tthey an odd people? One really never knows what will make them cry orlaugh."
Something was apparently amusing them at that moment, however, for aburst of boisterous merriment pealed from a dense crowd near a boothpitched in an open space.
"What's that?" she cried sharply. "Let's go and see."
She was out of the dog-cart as she spoke despite his protest that itwas impossible--that she must not venture.
"Do you imagine they'll murder me?" she asked with an _insouciant_,incredulous laugh. "What nonsense! Here, good people, let me pass,please!"
She was by this time in the thick of the crowd, which gave wayinstinctively, and he could do nothing but follow; his boyish facestern with the mere thought her idle words had conjured up. Do her anyinjury? Her dainty dress should not even be touched if he could helpit.
But the sightseers, most of them peasants beguiled from their fieldsfor this Festival of Spring, had never seen an English lady at suchclose quarters before, if, indeed, they had ever seen one at all. So,though they gave way they closed in again, silent but insistent intheir curiosity; while, as the center of attraction came nearer, thecrowd in front became denser, more absorbed in the bursts ofmerriment. There was a ring of license in them which made youngMainwaring plead hurriedly:
"Mrs. Gissing!--don't--please don't."
"But I want to see what they're laughing at," she replied. And then inperfect mimicry of the groom's familiar cry, her high clear voiceechoed over the heads in front of her: "_Hut! Hut! Ari bhaiyan! Hut!_"
They turned to see her gay face full of smiles, joyous, confident,sympathetic, and the next minute the cry was echoed with approvinggrins from a dozen responsive throats.
"Stand back, brothers! Stand back!"
There were quick hustlings to right and left, quick nods and smiles,even broad laughs full of good fellowship; so that she found herselfat the innermost circle with clear view of the central space, of thecause of the laughter. It made her give a faint gasp and standtransfixed. Two white-masked figures, clasped waist to waist, werewaltzing about tipsily. One had a curled flaxen wig, a muslin dressdistended by an all too visible crinoline, giving full play to a pairof prancing brown legs. The other wore an old staff uniform, cockedhat and feather complete. The flaxen curls rested on the tarnishedepaulet, the unembracing arms flourished brandy bottles.
It was a vile travesty; and the Englishwoman turned instinctively tothe Englishman as if doubtful what to do, how to take it. But thepassion of his boyish face seemed to make things clear--to give herthe clew, and she gripped his hand hard.
"Don't be a fool!" she whispered fiercely. "Laugh. It's the only thingto do." Her own voice rang out shrill above the uncertain stir in thecrowd, taken aback in its merriment.
But something else rose above it also. A single word:
"Bravo!"
She turned like lightning to the sound, her cheeks for the first timeaflame, but she could see no one in the circle of dark faces whom shecould credit with the exclamation. Yet she felt sure she had heard it.
"Bravo!" Had it been said in jest or earnest, in mockery or---- YoungMainwaring interrupted the problem by suggesting that as the maskershad run away into a booth, where he could not follow and give them thelicking they deserved because of her presence, it might be as well forher to escape further insult by returning to the buggy. His tone wasas full of reproach as that of a lad in love could be, but Mrs.Gissing was callous. She declared she was glad to have seen it.Englishmen did drink and Englishwomen waltzed. Why, then, shouldn'tthe natives poke fun at both habits if they chose? They themselvescould laugh at other things. And laugh she did, recklessly, ateverything and everybody for the remainder of the drive. Butunderneath her gayety she was harping on that "Bravo!" And suddenly asthey drove by the river she broke in on the boy's prattle to sayexcitedly: "I have it! It must have been the one in the Afghan cap whosaid 'Bravo!' He was fairer than the rest. Perhaps he was anEnglishman disguised. Well! I should know him again if I saw him."
"Him? who--what? Who said bravo?" asked the lad. He had been too angryto notice the exclamation at the time.
She looked at him quizzically. "Not you--you abused me. But someonedid--or didn't"--here her little slack hands resting in her lapclasped each other tightly. "I rather wish I knew. I'd rather like tomake him say it again. Bravo! Bravo!"
And then, as if at her own mimicry, she returned to her childishunreasoning laugh.